Jeanne Pouchain has not existed in the eyes of France’s officials since 2017
In the flesh, Jeanne Pouchain appears very much alive and well. Convincing the French authorities of this has proven another matter.
After being declared dead by a court, Pouchain has spent three years trying to have herself officially resuscitated.
Continue reading...French president vows to overhaul France-Africa event to help mobilise Africa’s young people
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has pledged to invite young Africans rather than their political leaders to a key France-Africa summit in a video call with the actor Idris Elba.
The Élysée Palace said Elba, a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations’ international fund for agricultural development, had asked to speak to the French leader. The Guardian was the only newspaper invited to attend the discussion at the Élysée, which marked the start of the One Planet biodiversity summit in Paris.
Continue reading...Past medical scandals involving big pharma and public officials have made many suspicious of vaccines
In France, every child is now obliged to have 11 vaccinations. If parents want their children to attend school, or take part in many extracurricular activities, they must accept. There is no opt-out or concessions made to vaccine doubters.
On Monday France’s government and health authorities are speeding up the country’s Covid-19 vaccine drive – a process complicated by widespread scepticism about the inoculation that has encompassed the usual global conspiracy theories.
Continue reading...Mayor Anne Hidalgo gives green light to £225m-scheme to transform French capital’s most famous avenue
The mayor of Paris has said a €250m (£225m) makeover of the Champs-Élysées will go ahead, though the ambitious transformation will not happen before the French capital hosts the 2024 Summer Olympics.
Anne Hidalgo said the planned work, unveiled in 2019 by local community leaders and businesses, would turn the 1.9 km (1.2 mile) stretch of central Paris into “an extraordinary garden”.
Continue reading...The scene-stealing star of the French comedy series - a word-of-mouth Netflix hit - on her journey from a prank show in Paris to co-stardom with Matt Damon
“I bought a few sheep during lockdown. Nobody told me they’d eat all my plants. How Parisian is that?” I’m discussing the pandemic with actor Camille Cottin, who during the first Covid lockdown last year decamped from her apartment in the French capital to do up an old farmhouse in Normandy. Now, she’s back in Paris, preparing for what will be a huge year. Already a star in her native France, Cottin is making the leap to major Hollywood roles. Tom McCarthy’s Stillwater, in which she co-stars with Matt Damon, is due for release in the autumn. She is currently polishing her English for her role in Ridley Scott’s Gucci biopic, which starts shooting in a few months and features Adam Driver as Maurizio Gucci and Lady Gaga his ex-wife. And she has just signed up for a huge project that she’s not yet allowed to talk about.
Before all that comes the fourth and final season on Netflix later this month of Call My Agent!, the word-of-mouth hit drama that has found new fans looking to binge during lockdown. As Andréa – tough, ruthless, gay, and agent to some of France’s biggest movie stars – Cottin’s is the standout role in a show that has brought her international attention, including a role in series three of Killing Eve.
Continue reading...Despite virus spread, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei forbids what he calls ‘untrustworthy’ jabs
Vaccines produced by the US and UK will be banned from entering Iran, its supreme leader has said, even though his country has suffered the worst virus outbreak in the Middle East.
“Imports of US and British vaccines into the country are forbidden ... They’re completely untrustworthy,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a live televised speech. “It’s not unlikely they would want to contaminate other nations.
Continue reading...Truck drivers tell of long delays for checks at the Eurotunnel as trade barrier goes up between UK and EU
Roger White arrived in France at 2.30pm on Tuesday with a truckload of hard cheese from Somerset.
Before Brexit he would have rolled off the Eurotunnel train and carried on up the A16 to Belgium, unloading his wares a few hours later at his ultimate destination in Utrecht.
Continue reading...Prosecutor say 22-year-old not alone in organising event that shocked a country in lockdown
French authorities have charged a suspected organiser of an illegal new year rave at which 2,400 people defied coronavirus rules, in a decision condemned by his supporters as an injustice.
The wildcat rave party in Brittany shocked the country as people continued to observe strict bans on gatherings to battle the coronavirus.
Continue reading...Guy Wildenstein and others face new trial after court annuls 2018 tax fraud acquittal
France’s highest court has ordered a retrial of members of the art-dealing Wildenstein family who were acquitted of tax fraud in 2018.
Guy Wildenstein, a close friend of former president Nicolas Sarkozy, and other family members, known in France as “les W”, were cleared of hiding an estimated €550m from the French tax authorities in offshore accounts in 2017 – a decision upheld on appeal.
Continue reading...Burglars made off with €350,000 of prestigious bottles from luxury hotel
A gang of wine thieves turned to the closest thing at hand when they discovered French gendarmes in hot pursuit of their van.
The burglars, who were making off with an estimated €350,000 (£317,000) worth of grands crus Burgundy wines, began hurling their loot at officers as they sped down the motorway at high speed.
Continue reading...Member of Roux culinary dynasty died on Monday after a long illness, his family has said
The chef and restaurateur Albert Roux has died at the age of 85.
The founder of the Michelin-starred Le Gavroche and member of the Roux culinary dynasty died on Monday after a long illness.
Continue reading...French forces were in area but say they attacked ‘fully-identified armed terrorist group’
More than 20 people, including children, were killed in airstrikes during a wedding ceremony in a remote desert area of central Mali, according to local sources.
It was not immediately clear who carried out the attacks but the reports emerged as French military sources said its forces in the country had carried out an airstrike in the area on Sunday that killed “dozens of fighters” from Islamist groups.
Continue reading...Olivier Duhamel quits academic and media posts after allegations made in stepdaughter’s book
Olivier Duhamel, one of France’s most high-profile political scientists and media commentators, has resigned from his academic and media posts after he was accused of sexually abusing his stepson.
The constitutional expert’s stepdaughter – the alleged victim’s twin – says the abuse happened in the 1980s when she and her brother were 14 and was well known to many members of the family and friends.
Continue reading...Rules vary from country to country but many European nations face severe restrictions
After a brief and partial relaxation of the rules over Christmas and New Year, many continental European countries have returned to the tough anti-Covid regimes that were imposed this autumn – with some tightening measures further.
According to the latest update from the World Health Organization, in the final week of 2020 the UK had a 14-day new-case notification rate of 720 for every 100,000 people, more than double that in France, Germany, Italy and Spain but lower than the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark.
Continue reading...Burst of optimism over approvals has been followed by delays, shortages and bureaucratic errors
The global introduction of newly approved coronavirus vaccines has been marked by delays, shortages and bureaucratic errors as it has become clear that many governments will miss their targets for mass inoculation.
The burst of optimism that arrived with approvals of new vaccines – encouraged by unrealistic expectations raised by politicians – is colliding with the reality of the challenge of vaccinating a large part of the world’s population.
Continue reading...Roger Lumbala suspected of various acts during 1998-2002 war in Democratic Republic of Congo
French anti-terror prosecutors have announced the arrest of the former head of a rebel group in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on charges of “complicity in crimes against humanity”.
Roger Lumbala, 62, is a former opposition lawmaker who led the RCD-N party, an armed group suspected by UN investigators of carrying out extrajudicial killings, rapes and cannibalism during the country’s civil war from 1998-2002.
Continue reading...Jacqueline Veyrac, 80-year-old owner of Cannes hotel, was found bound and gagged in car in 2016
A former British soldier has gone on trial with 12 others in France accused of kidnapping a wealthy hotel heiress.
Jacqueline Veyrac, 80, the owner of the five-star Grand Hotel in Cannes, was snatched from the street near her home in October 2016.
Continue reading...Christine and Sebastien met via a survivors’ group after being caught up in separate attacks in London and Paris
For most of the world, 2020 was a year of disease and death. For Christine Delcros and Sebastien Besatti, survivors of separate terror attacks in London and Paris, it brought love and a desire for life – feelings they thought they had lost forever.
“We know 2020 has been an annus horribilis for most people, but for us it has been a renaissance. A time to live again. It seems crazy to have found such happiness out of such dark times,” Besatti says in an interview with the Guardian.
Continue reading...Stephen Greenhalgh said executives should not ‘hide behind’ rarely used French law
The UK government has demanded that executives who supplied combustible cladding to Grenfell Tower “step up to the plate” after their refusal to give evidence to the public inquiry into the disaster provoked anger among the bereaved and survivors.
On Sunday, Stephen Greenhalgh, the building safety minister, escalated a legal and diplomatic dispute over the position taken by three current and former executives at the French division of the US company Arconic. He told them to stop hiding behind an arcane French law.
Continue reading...Firm races to fill potential gap left by bloc’s gamble on several vaccines being approved
BioNtech has criticised the EU’s failure to order more doses of its coronavirus vaccine, saying it is now racing with its US partner, Pfizer, to boost production amid fears of a European “gap” left by the lack of other approved vaccines.
The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was the first to be approved by the bloc late last month, after being accepted by the UK, Canada and the US. They and other countries have also since approved the Moderna or Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, leaving the EU trailing behind.
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